house of dusk part 1
by freespirit2012
Summary: this is a very long poem
1. Chapter 1

**_THE HOUSE OF DUST PART I._**

**_The sun goes down in a cold pale flare of light._**

**_The trees grow dark: the shadows lean to the east:_**

**_And lights wink out through the windows, one by one._**

**_A clamor of frosty sirens mourns at the night._**

**_Pale slate-grey clouds whirl up from the sunken sun._**

**_And the wandering one, the inquisitive dreamer of dreams,_**

**_The eternal asker of answers, stands in the street,_**

**_And lifts his palms for the first cold ghost of rain._**

**_The purple lights leap down the hill before him._**

**_The gorgeous night has begun again._**

**_'I will ask them all, I will ask them all their dreams,_**

**_I will hold my light above them and seek their faces._**

**_I will hear them whisper, invisible in their veins . . .'_**

**_The eternal asker of answers becomes as the darkness,_**

**_Or as a wind blown over a myriad forest,_**

**_Or as the numberless voices of long-drawn rains._**

**_We hear him and take him among us, like a wind of music,_**

**_Like the ghost of a music we have somewhere heard;_**

**_We crowd through the streets in a dazzle of pallid lamplight,_**

**_We pour in a sinister wave, ascend a stair,_**

**_With laughter and cry, and word upon murmured word;_**

**_We flow, we descend, we turn . . . and the eternal dreamer_**

**_Moves among us like light, like evening air . . ._**

**_Good-night! Good-night! Good-night! We go our ways,_**

**_The rain runs over the pavement before our feet,_**

**_The cold rain falls, the rain sings._**

**_We walk, we run, we ride. We turn our faces_**

**_To what the eternal evening brings._**

**_Our hands are hot and raw with the stones we have laid,_**

**_We have built a tower of stone high into the sky,_**

**_We have built a city of towers._**

**_Our hands are light, they are singing with emptiness._**

**_Our souls are light; they have shaken a burden of hours . . ._**

**_What did we build it for? Was it all a dream? . . ._**

**_Ghostly above us in lamplight the towers gleam . . ._**

**_And after a while they will fall to dust and rain;_**

**_Or else we will tear them down with impatient hands;_**

**_And hew rock out of the earth, and build them again._**

**_One, from his high bright window in a tower,_**

**_Leans out, as evening falls,_**

**_And sees the advancing curtain of the shower_**

**_Splashing its silver on roofs and walls:_**

**_Sees how, swift as a shadow, it crosses the city,_**

**_And murmurs beyond far walls to the sea,_**

**_Leaving a glimmer of water in the dark canyons,_**

**_And silver falling from eave and tree._**

**_One, from his high bright window, looking down,_**

**_Peers like a dreamer over the rain-bright town,_**

**_And thinks its towers are like a dream._**

**_The western windows flame in the sun's last flare,_**

**_Pale roofs begin to gleam._**

**_Looking down from a window high in a wall_**

**_He sees us all;_**

**_Lifting our pallid faces towards the rain,_**

**_Searching the sky, and going our ways again,_**

**_Standing in doorways, waiting under the trees . . ._**

**_There, in the high bright window he dreams, and sees_**

**_What we are blind to,--we who mass and crowd_**

**_From wall to wall in the darkening of a cloud._**

**_The gulls drift slowly above the city of towers,_**

**_Over the roofs to the darkening sea they fly;_**

**_Night falls swiftly on an evening of rain._**

**_The yellow lamps wink one by one again._**

**_The towers reach higher and blacker against the sky._**

**_One, where the pale sea foamed at the yellow sand,_**

**_With wave upon slowly shattering wave,_**

**_Turned to the city of towers as evening fell;_**

**_And slowly walked by the darkening road toward it;_**

**_And saw how the towers darkened against the sky;_**

**_And across the distance heard the toll of a bell._**

**_Along the darkening road he hurried alone,_**

**_With his eyes cast down,_**

**_And thought how the streets were hoarse with a tide of people,_**

**_With clamor of voices, and numberless faces . . ._**

**_And it seemed to him, of a sudden, that he would drown_**

**_Here in the quiet of evening air,_**

**_These empty and voiceless places . . ._**

**_And he hurried towards the city, to enter there._**

**_Along the darkening road, between tall trees_**

**_That made a sinister whisper, loudly he walked._**

**_Behind him, sea-gulls dipped over long grey seas._**

**_Before him, numberless lovers smiled and talked._**

**_And death was observed with sudden cries,_**

**_And birth with laughter and pain._**

**_And the trees grew taller and blacker against the skies_**

**_And night came down again._**

**_Up high black walls, up sombre terraces,_**

**_Clinging like luminous birds to the sides of cliffs,_**

**_The yellow lights went climbing towards the sky._**

**_From high black walls, gleaming vaguely with rain,_**

**_Each yellow light looked down like a golden eye._**

**_They trembled from coign to coign, and tower to tower,_**

**_Along high terraces quicker than dream they flew._**

**_And some of them steadily glowed, and some soon vanished,_**

**_And some strange shadows threw._**

**_And behind them all the ghosts of thoughts went moving,_**

**_Restlessly moving in each lamplit room,_**

**_From chair to mirror, from mirror to fire;_**

**_From some, the light was scarcely more than a gloom:_**

**_From some, a dazzling desire._**

**_And there was one, beneath black eaves, who thought,_**

**_Combing with lifted arms her golden hair,_**

**_Of the lover who hurried towards her through the night;_**

**_And there was one who dreamed of a sudden death_**

**_As she blew out her light._**

**_And there was one who turned from clamoring streets,_**

**_And walked in lamplit gardens among black trees,_**

**_And looked at the windy sky,_**

**_And thought with terror how stones and roots would freeze_**

**_And birds in the dead boughs cry . . ._**

**_And she hurried back, as snow fell, mixed with rain,_**

**_To mingle among the crowds again,_**

**_To jostle beneath blue lamps along the street;_**

**_And lost herself in the warm bright coiling dream,_**

**_With a sound of murmuring voices and shuffling feet._**

**_And one, from his high bright window looking down_**

**_On luminous chasms that cleft the basalt town,_**

**_Hearing a sea-like murmur rise,_**

**_Desired to leave his dream, descend from the tower,_**

**_And drown in waves of shouts and laughter and cries._**

**_The snow floats down upon us, mingled with rain . . ._**

**_It eddies around pale lilac lamps, and falls_**

**_Down golden-windowed walls._**

**_We were all born of flesh, in a flare of pain,_**

**_We do not remember the red roots whence we rose,_**

**_But we know that we rose and walked, that after a while_**

**_We shall lie down again._**

**_The snow floats down upon us, we turn, we turn,_**

**_Through gorges filled with light we sound and flow . . ._**

**_One is struck down and hurt, we crowd about him,_**

**_We bear him away, gaze after his listless body;_**

**_But whether he lives or dies we do not know._**

**_One of us sings in the street, and we listen to him;_**

**_The words ring over us like vague bells of sorrow._**

**_He sings of a house he lived in long ago._**

**_It is strange; this house of dust was the house I lived in;_**

**_The house you lived in, the house that all of us know._**

**_And coiling slowly about him, and laughing at him,_**

**_And throwing him pennies, we bear away_**

**_A mournful echo of other times and places,_**

**_And follow a dream . . . a dream that will not stay._**

**_Down long broad flights of lamplit stairs we flow;_**

**_Noisy, in scattered waves, crowding and shouting;_**

**_In broken slow cascades._**

**_The gardens extend before us . . . We spread out swiftly;_**

**_Trees are above us, and darkness. The canyon fades . . ._**

**_And we recall, with a gleaming stab of sadness,_**

**_Vaguely and incoherently, some dream_**

**_Of a world we came from, a world of sun-blue hills . . ._**

**_A black wood whispers around us, green eyes gleam;_**

**_Someone cries in the forest, and someone kills._**

**_We flow to the east, to the white-lined shivering sea;_**

**_We reach to the west, where the whirling sun went down;_**

**_We close our eyes to music in bright cafees._**

**_We diverge from clamorous streets to streets that are silent._**

**_We loaf where the wind-spilled fountain plays._**

**_And, growing tired, we turn aside at last,_**

**_Remember our secret selves, seek out our towers,_**

**_Lay weary hands on the banisters, and climb;_**

**_Climbing, each, to his little four-square dream_**

**_Of love or lust or beauty or death or crime._**

**_Over the darkened city, the city of towers,_**

**_The city of a thousand gates,_**

**_Over the gleaming terraced roofs, the huddled towers,_**

**_Over a somnolent whisper of loves and hates,_**

**_The slow wind flows, drearily streams and falls,_**

**_With a mournful sound down rain-dark walls._**

**_On one side purples the lustrous dusk of the sea,_**

**_And dreams in white at the city's feet;_**

**_On one side sleep the plains, with heaped-up hills._**

**_Oaks and beeches whisper in rings about it._**

**_Above the trees are towers where dread bells beat._**

**_The fisherman draws his streaming net from the sea_**

**_And sails toward the far-off city, that seems_**

**_Like one vague tower._**

**_The dark bow plunges to foam on blue-black waves,_**

**_And shrill rain seethes like a ghostly music about him_**

**_In a quiet shower._**

**_Rain with a shrill sings on the lapsing waves;_**

**_Rain thrills over the roofs again;_**

**_Like a shadow of shifting silver it crosses the city;_**

**_The lamps in the streets are streamed with rain;_**

**_And sparrows complain beneath deep eaves,_**

**_And among whirled leaves_**

**_The sea-gulls, blowing from tower to lower tower,_**

**_From wall to remoter wall,_**

**_Skim with the driven rain to the rising sea-sound_**

**_And close grey wings and fall . . ._**

**_. . . Hearing great rain above me, I now remember_**

**_A girl who stood by the door and shut her eyes:_**

**_Her pale cheeks glistened with rain, she stood and shivered._**

**_Into a forest of silver she vanished slowly . . ._**

**_Voices about me rise . . ._**

**_Voices clear and silvery, voices of raindrops,--_**

**_'We struck with silver claws, we struck her down._**

**_We are the ghosts of the singing furies . . . '_**

**_A chorus of elfin voices blowing about me_**

**_Weaves to a babel of sound. Each cries a secret._**

**_I run among them, reach out vain hands, and drown._**

**_'I am the one who stood beside you and smiled,_**

**_Thinking your face so strangely young . . . '_**

**_'I am the one who loved you but did not dare.'_**

**_'I am the one you followed through crowded streets,_**

**_The one who escaped you, the one with red-gleamed hair.'_**

**_'I am the one you saw to-day, who fell_**

**_Senseless before you, hearing a certain bell:_**

**_A bell that broke great memories in my brain.'_**

**_'I am the one who passed unnoticed before you,_**

**_Invisible, in a cloud of secret pain.'_**

**_'I am the one who suddenly cried, beholding_**

**_The face of a certain man on the dazzling screen._**

**_They wrote me that he was dead. It was long ago._**

**_I walked in the streets for a long while, hearing nothing,_**

**_And returned to see it again. And it was so.'_**

**_Weave, weave, weave, you streaks of rain!_**

**_I am dissolved and woven again . . ._**

**_Thousands of faces rise and vanish before me._**

**_Thousands of voices weave in the rain._**

**_'I am the one who rode beside you, blinking_**

**_At a dazzle of golden lights._**

**_Tempests of music swept me: I was thinking_**

**_Of the gorgeous promise of certain nights:_**

**_Of the woman who suddenly smiled at me this day,_**

**_Smiled in a certain delicious sidelong way,_**

**_And turned, as she reached the door,_**

**_To smile once more . . ._**

**_Her hands are whiter than snow on midnight water._**

**_Her throat is golden and full of golden laughter,_**

**_Her eyes are strange as the stealth of the moon_**

**_On a night in June . . ._**

**_She runs among whistling leaves; I hurry after;_**

**_She dances in dreams over white-waved water;_**

**_Her body is white and fragrant and cool,_**

**_Magnolia petals that float on a white-starred pool . . ._**

**_I have dreamed of her, dreaming for many nights_**

**_Of a broken music and golden lights,_**

**_Of broken webs of silver, heavily falling_**

**_Between my hands and their white desire:_**

**_And dark-leaved boughs, edged with a golden radiance,_**

**_Dipping to screen a fire . . ._**

**_I dream that I walk with her beneath high trees,_**

**_But as I lean to kiss her face,_**

**_She is blown aloft on wind, I catch at leaves,_**

**_And run in a moonless place;_**

**_And I hear a crashing of terrible rocks flung down,_**

**_And shattering trees and cracking walls,_**

**_And a net of intense white flame roars over the town,_**

**_And someone cries; and darkness falls . . ._**

**_But now she has leaned and smiled at me,_**

**_My veins are afire with music,_**

**_Her eyes have kissed me, my body is turned to light;_**

**_I shall dream to her secret heart tonight . . . '_**

**_He rises and moves away, he says no word,_**

**_He folds his evening paper and turns away;_**

**_I rush through the dark with rows of lamplit faces;_**

**_Fire bells peal, and some of us turn to listen,_**

**_And some sit motionless in their accustomed places._**

**_Cold rain lashes the car-roof, scurries in gusts,_**

**_Streams down the windows in waves and ripples of lustre;_**

**_The lamps in the streets are distorted and strange._**

**_Someone takes his watch from his pocket and yawns._**

**_One peers out in the night for the place to change._**

**_Rain . . . rain . . . rain . . . we are buried in rain,_**

**_It will rain forever, the swift wheels hiss through water,_**

**_Pale sheets of water gleam in the windy street._**

**_The pealing of bells is lost in a drive of rain-drops._**

**_Remote and hurried the great bells beat._**

**_'I am the one whom life so shrewdly betrayed,_**

**_Misfortune dogs me, it always hunted me down._**

**_And to-day the woman I love lies dead._**

**_I gave her roses, a ring with opals;_**

**_These hands have touched her head._**

**_'I bound her to me in all soft ways,_**

**_I bound her to me in a net of days,_**

**_Yet now she has gone in silence and said no word._**

**_How can we face these dazzling things, I ask you?_**

**_There is no use: we cry: and are not heard._**

**_'They cover a body with roses . . . I shall not see it . . ._**

**_Must one return to the lifeless walls of a city_**

**_Whose soul is charred by fire? . . . '_**

**_His eyes are closed, his lips press tightly together._**

**_Wheels hiss beneath us. He yields us our desire._**

**_'No, do not stare so--he is weak with grief,_**

**_He cannot face you, he turns his eyes aside;_**

**_He is confused with pain._**

**_I suffered this. I know. It was long ago . . ._**

**_He closes his eyes and drowns in death again.'_**

**_The wind hurls blows at the rain-starred glistening windows,_**

**_The wind shrills down from the half-seen walls._**

**_We flow on the mournful wind in a dream of dying;_**

**_And at last a silence falls._**

**_Midnight; bells toll, and along the cloud-high towers_**

**_The golden lights go out . . ._**

**_The yellow windows darken, the shades are drawn,_**

**_In thousands of rooms we sleep, we await the dawn,_**

**_We lie face down, we dream,_**

**_We cry aloud with terror, half rise, or seem_**

**_To stare at the ceiling or walls . . ._**

**_Midnight . . . the last of shattering bell-notes falls._**

**_A rush of silence whirls over the cloud-high towers,_**

**_A vortex of soundless hours._**

**_'The bells have just struck twelve: I should be sleeping._**

**_But I cannot delay any longer to write and tell you._**

**_The woman is dead._**

**_She died--you know the way. Just as we planned._**

**_Smiling, with open sunlit eyes._**

**_Smiling upon the outstretched fatal hand . . .'_**

**_He folds his letter, steps softly down the stairs._**

**_The doors are closed and silent. A gas-jet flares._**

**_His shadow disturbs a shadow of balustrades._**

**_The door swings shut behind. Night roars above him._**

**_Into the night he fades._**

**_Wind; wind; wind; carving the walls;_**

**_Blowing the water that gleams in the street;_**

**_Blowing the rain, the sleet._**

**_In the dark alley, an old tree cracks and falls,_**

**_Oak-boughs moan in the haunted air;_**

**_Lamps blow down with a crash and tinkle of glass . . ._**

**_Darkness whistles . . . Wild hours pass . . ._**

**_And those whom sleep eludes lie wide-eyed, hearing_**

**_Above their heads a goblin night go by;_**

**_Children are waked, and cry,_**

**_The young girl hears the roar in her sleep, and dreams_**

**_That her lover is caught in a burning tower,_**

**_She clutches the pillow, she gasps for breath, she screams . . ._**

**_And then by degrees her breath grows quiet and slow,_**

**_She dreams of an evening, long ago:_**

**_Of colored lanterns balancing under trees,_**

**_Some of them softly catching afire;_**

**_And beneath the lanterns a motionless face she sees,_**

**_Golden with lamplight, smiling, serene . . ._**

**_The leaves are a pale and glittering green,_**

**_The sound of horns blows over the trampled grass,_**

**_Shadows of dancers pass . . ._**

**_The face smiles closer to hers, she tries to lean_**

**_Backward, away, the eyes burn close and strange,_**

**_The face is beginning to change,--_**

**_It is her lover, she no longer desires to resist,_**

**_She is held and kissed._**

**_She closes her eyes, and melts in a seethe of flame . . ._**

**_With a smoking ghost of shame . . ._**

**_Wind, wind, wind . . . Wind in an enormous brain_**

**_Blowing dark thoughts like fallen leaves . . ._**

**_The wind shrieks, the wind grieves;_**

**_It dashes the leaves on walls, it whirls then again;_**

**_And the enormous sleeper vaguely and stupidly dreams_**

**_And desires to stir, to resist a ghost of pain._**

**_One, whom the city imprisoned because of his cunning,_**

**_Who dreamed for years in a tower,_**

**_Seizes this hour_**

**_Of tumult and wind. He files through the rusted bar,_**

**_Leans his face to the rain, laughs up at the night,_**

**_Slides down the knotted sheet, swings over the wall,_**

**_To fall to the street with a cat-like fall,_**

**_Slinks round a quavering rim of windy light,_**

**_And at last is gone,_**

**_Leaving his empty cell for the pallor of dawn . . ._**

**_The mother whose child was buried to-day_**

**_Turns her face to the window; her face is grey;_**

**_And all her body is cold with the coldness of rain._**

**_He would have grown as easily as a tree,_**

**_He would have spread a pleasure of shade above her,_**

**_He would have been his father again . . ._**

**_His growth was ended by a freezing invisible shadow._**

**_She lies, and does not move, and is stabbed by the rain._**

**_Wind, wind, wind; we toss and dream;_**

**_We dream we are clouds and stars, blown in a stream:_**

**_Windows rattle above our beds;_**

**_We reach vague-gesturing hands, we lift our heads,_**

**_Hear sounds far off,--and dream, with quivering breath,_**

**_Our curious separate ways through life and death._**

**_The white fog creeps from the cold sea over the city,_**

**_Over the pale grey tumbled towers,--_**

**_And settles among the roofs, the pale grey walls._**

**_Along damp sinuous streets it crawls,_**

**_Curls like a dream among the motionless trees_**

**_And seems to freeze._**

**_The fog slips ghostlike into a thousand rooms,_**

**_Whirls over sleeping faces,_**

**_Spins in an atomy dance round misty street lamps;_**

**_And blows in cloudy waves over open spaces . . ._**

**_And one from his high window, looking down,_**

**_Peers at the cloud-white town,_**

**_And thinks its island towers are like a dream . . ._**

**_It seems an enormous sleeper, within whose brain_**

**_Laborious shadows revolve and break and gleam_**


	2. Chapter 2

_**the house of dusk part 2**_

_**The round red sun heaves darkly out of the sea.**_

_**The walls and towers are warmed and gleam.**_

_**Sounds go drowsily up from streets and wharves.**_

_**The city stirs like one that is half in dream.**_

_**And the mist flows up by dazzling walls and windows,**_

_**Where one by one we wake and rise.**_

_**We gaze at the pale grey lustrous sea a moment,**_

_**We rub the darkness from our eyes,**_

_**And face our thousand devious secret mornings . . .**_

_**And do not see how the pale mist, slowly ascending,**_

_**Shaped by the sun, shines like a white-robed dreamer**_

_**Compassionate over our towers bending.**_

_**There, like one who gazes into a crystal,**_

_**He broods upon our city with sombre eyes;**_

_**He sees our secret fears vaguely unfolding,**_

_**Sees cloudy symbols shape to rise.**_

_**Each gleaming point of light is like a seed**_

_**Dilating swiftly to coiling fires.**_

_**Each cloud becomes a rapidly dimming face,**_

_**Each hurrying face records its strange desires.**_

_**We descend our separate stairs toward the day,**_

_**Merge in the somnolent mass that fills the street,**_

_**Lift our eyes to the soft blue space of sky,**_

_**And walk by the well-known walls with accustomed feet.**_

_**II. THE FULFILLED DREAM**_

_**More towers must yet be built--more towers destroyed--**_

_**Great rocks hoisted in air;**_

_**And he must seek his bread in high pale sunlight**_

_**With gulls about him, and clouds just over his eyes . . .**_

_**And so he did not mention his dream of falling**_

_**But drank his coffee in silence, and heard in his ears**_

_**That horrible whistle of wind, and felt his breath**_

_**Sucked out of him, and saw the tower flash by**_

_**And the small tree swell beneath him . . .**_

_**He patted his boy on the head, and kissed his wife,**_

_**Looked quickly around the room, to remember it,--**_

_**And so went out . . . For once, he forgot his pail.**_

_**Something had changed--but it was not the street--**_

_**The street was just the same--it was himself.**_

_**Puddles flashed in the sun. In the pawn-shop door**_

_**The same old black cat winked green amber eyes;**_

_**The butcher stood by his window tying his apron;**_

_**The same men walked beside him, smoking pipes,**_

_**Reading the morning paper . . .**_

_**He would not yield, he thought, and walk more slowly,**_

_**As if he knew for certain he walked to death:**_

_**But with his usual pace,--deliberate, firm,**_

_**Looking about him calmly, watching the world,**_

_**Taking his ease . . . Yet, when he thought again**_

_**Of the same dream, now dreamed three separate times,**_

_**Always the same, and heard that whistling wind,**_

_**And saw the windows flashing upward past him,--**_

_**He slowed his pace a little, and thought with horror**_

_**How monstrously that small tree thrust to meet him! . . .**_

_**He slowed his pace a little and remembered his wife.**_

_**Was forty, then, too old for work like this?**_

_**Why should it be? He'd never been afraid--**_

_**His eye was sure, his hand was steady . . .**_

_**But dreams had meanings.**_

_**He walked more slowly, and looked along the roofs,**_

_**All built by men, and saw the pale blue sky;**_

_**And suddenly he was dizzy with looking at it,**_

_**It seemed to whirl and swim,**_

_**It seemed the color of terror, of speed, of death . . .**_

_**He lowered his eyes to the stones, he walked more slowly;**_

_**His thoughts were blown and scattered like leaves;**_

_**He thought of the pail . . . Why, then, was it forgotten?**_

_**Because he would not need it?**_

_**Then, just as he was grouping his thoughts again**_

_**About that drug-store corner, under an arc-lamp,**_

_**Where first he met the girl whom he would marry,--**_

_**That blue-eyed innocent girl, in a soft blouse,--**_

_**He waved his hand for signal, and up he went**_

_**In the dusty chute that hugged the wall;**_

_**Above the tree; from girdered floor to floor;**_

_**Above the flattening roofs, until the sea**_

_**Lay wide and waved before him . . . And then he stepped**_

_**Giddily out, from that security,**_

_**To the red rib of iron against the sky,**_

_**And walked along it, feeling it sing and tremble;**_

_**And looking down one instant, saw the tree**_

_**Just as he dreamed it was; and looked away,**_

_**And up again, feeling his blood go wild.**_

_**He gave the signal; the long girder swung**_

_**Closer to him, dropped clanging into place,**_

_**Almost pushing him off. Pneumatic hammers**_

_**Began their madhouse clatter, the white-hot rivets**_

_**Were tossed from below and deftly caught in pails;**_

_**He signalled again, and wiped his mouth, and thought**_

_**A place so high in the air should be more quiet.**_

_**The tree, far down below, teased at his eyes,**_

_**Teased at the corners of them, until he looked,**_

_**And felt his body go suddenly small and light;**_

_**Felt his brain float off like a dwindling vapor;**_

_**And heard a whistle of wind, and saw a tree**_

_**Come plunging up to him, and thought to himself,**_

_**'By God--I'm done for now, the dream was right . . .'**_


End file.
